Pathetic
by convenientdistraction
Summary: Emma sees more than a little in common between herself and Rachel, but Will just doesn't get it.
1. Chapter 1

-1Thursday always seemed like the longest day of the week. And at 7:26 pm on a Thursday, you could usually find one Emma Pillsbury pacing back and forth from the food cooking on the spotless stove to the picture window in the living room that overlooked the street. Or back and forth from the slowly growing pile of neatly stacked laundry on their bed to the bathroom window that faced the back parking lot. Or when she was feeling particularly anxious, back and forth from the front door of their apartment complex to the cross section at the end of the street, practically skipping over muddy leaves and pet droppings. Once when his car slowed to a halt at the stop sign, she had tapped on the glass and grinned as he had leaned over to unlock the passenger door of his car. Anyone else in the entire world would have thought she was crazy. But it only made him fall for her more.

Since they had moved in together three months ago, Emma knew that Will had zero complaints about being practically jumped the moment he unlocked the door to their apartment on Thursday evenings, after extended Glee rehearsals were over. So she knew it wouldn't go unnoticed when no one was there to greet him that evening. She was counting on it.

At 7:28, she was contentedly curled up on the living room sofa, complete with blanket, book, and mug of tea. After one creaky door-knob turn, one clink of keys on the entryway table, and two clunks of his abandoned shoes on the floor, she could almost feel him pause.

"Em? Are you here?"

She bit her bottom lip and waited, as he walked into the living room. He smiled and sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

"Hey, what's up?" He tugged playfully at her blanket. "I waited for you at the stop sign."

"Very funny. I'm sorry I guess I just got lost in my reading," she offered as she kept her gaze focused on the book, trying to read convincingly. She flipped a page for effect. "Are you hungry?"

"Nah. I'll get something later." He leaned backwards into the couch cushions, propping a leg up on the coffee table, and sighed softly. Though he hadn't mastered all of hers, Emma knew Will's cues. She had memorized them with a fervor nothing short of religious back when he was coming home to five feet two inches of blonde, whining fury at 7:28pm on a Thursday night.

He sighed again, a little longer and louder this time, and braced his arms behind his neck. This was the "ask me about my day so I can tell you how crappy it was" sigh.

Emma sat up and scooted herself next him. "Crummy day?"

"Eh. No one scored above an 85 on the midterm. One of the football players left half of a squashed armadillo in the choir room piano." Emma scrunched her nose in disgust and began to slide her palm lightly up and down his back.

"Rehearsal was. . . Well, let's just say it felt more like drama club rehearsal than glee club rehearsal."

"So I heard."

"Ahh, I take it that you got the present I sent you?" he grinned as he leaned over to steal a kiss on her cheek.

"Yes. But Will. . .You can't just send her to see me every time you don't feel like dealing with the situation."

"But you're so good with her. And I know for a fact that she loves talking to you. Who wouldn't love an excuse to come and see you?" She shuddered as his breath warmed her neck and he proceeded to nip at her ear lobe. But then she pulled away to face him.

"Today was the fourth time. The fourth time in the last two weeks. Clearly, I can't make this problem go away, if it keeps happening on your turf, Will."

"But you're the guidance counselor."

"No, I'm the guidance counselor until three o'clock. After that, I'm just your girlfriend who's doing you a favor." She rested a hand on his knee. "Besides, when has that ever stopped you from helping them on your own in the past. She enjoys talking to you, too." She could feel him tense up as he raked his hands through his hair and sighed again.

"Yes, and that's what I'm afraid of Emma. Remember what happened the last time she enjoyed my company a little too much?"

"You and I both know that that was a harmless crush. She's a smart girl, Will. She _knows _that it was silly. And while this should just be between me and her," she paused, "she is more than a little hurt that you're so visibly bothered by her. . .efforts. . .at school."

"Hah. Efforts? That's what you would call it. Her efforts."

"Well, what would you call it then?" she asked, a hint of frustration in her voice.

"I would call it crazy, Emma. In Spanish, she doodles Rachel Hudson in her notebook _all _period, and she follows him around the cafeteria like a puppy. She practically sprints to the bathroom to cry when she sees him with Quinn, which is only half as disturbing as the crazy-eyed expression on her face when she sings to him in rehearsals. You know yesterday, I saw her pressed up against the wall behind the locker room entrance, so she could pretend to bump into him after he left gym class. Honestly, Emma, I'm beginning to wonder if you shouldn't recommend her to a psychia-"

"Crazy. You think she's crazy because she loves him when he's with someone else." Now she was off the couch standing over him. He looked up at her quizzically and then shifted his eyes shifted downwards at her fists, clenching and unclenching, as she waited for his reply.

"Okay, well I guess this is to be expected from Rachel. And I'm sorry, Emma, I know you don't like that word. I shouldn't have used it." He leaned forward to tug at her skirt, attempting to coax her into his lap. She didn't budge. "It's just that. . .I don't think being with someone like Rachel, you know, someone who wants things so badly, is right for a guy like Finn. And I just hate to see her act like this. Come on Emma, you have to admit it's more than a little pathetic."

"More than a little pathetic," she repeated calmly, her eyes boring a hole into the rug.

"Emma? Sweetheart, what is going on-"

"Pathetic," she whispered softly as she lifted her head, tugging her skirt out of Will's grasp. Without another word, she wildly whipped the blanket off the couch, knocking her novel and the half-full cup of tea onto to the living room floor.

"Emma! What on earth has gotten into you!"

She punctuated his sentence with the slamming of their bedroom door.


	2. Chapter 2

Through the blur of her tears, Emma lay still on the bed with her back facing the door. She watched the furry red numbers on her alarm clock blink to 7:52. Maybe she was crazy. And maybe she was. . ._pathetic_. She winced a little as her mind squeezed out the word. But she was _not _sorry. And he was going to be waiting a hell of a long time if he was waiting for her to come out and apologize for her mini-meltdown.

A soft rap a the door was followed by his voice.

"Emma?"

She stifled a hiccup as she did her best to wipe her mascara out from under her eyes. When she heard the door open, she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut and attempted to slow her breathing.

She felt the opposite side of the bed sink as his weight fell on it.

"Look. I'm no expert,"

_Clearly, _she wanted to interject, but opted for squeezing her eyes shut tighter when she felt his palm on her shoulder.

"but I'm thinking that somewhere in between my unlocking the door to the apartment and scrubbing a tea stain out of the carpet, we stopped talking about Rachel Berry and started talking about something else."

She tensed a little as his thumb began to wander slowly up the curve of her chin.

"Em. I know you're awake. You're holding your breath," he chuckled softly.

"Oh, so you think this is funny!" she snapped as she jerked up off the pillow to kneel and face him.

"What? No-"

"It's just so hilarious that your pathetic girlfriend can't go two hours without seeing you before spontaneously combusting." She saw him jerk back a little as her voice shrilled up an octave. "That I can't stand to swallow my lunch if you're not sitting next to me. That I'm practically clawing on the door of your classroom during the last period of the day. That I have to chase your car down the street before you can even get home." She rubbed her palms against her eyes to dam the flood of waterworks that threatened to break lose.

His audible swallow told her he was thinking carefully before he spoke this time. Until she laid her metaphorical cards down as she softly choked out her confession. "You don't think I'm _trying_ to get better, Will? I don't want to lose you."

"Lose me?" As he gently tugging her arms down, his stare told her he was still more than a little lost. He waited a few seconds. "Emma, by any chance did Rachel tell you today why she thinks Finn broke up with her? And does this information, have anything to do with why you were fake reading on the couch when I got home?"

"Maybe," she sniffed. "I'm not at liberty to say."

His lop-sided smile made her heart flutter a little as he continued. "Well, I'm not at liberty to speak either, but let me just say that what you heard is just one side of a very complicated and _very _ridiculous story." His hand had latched onto the side of her hip and began to rub small, comforting circles. "A story which has nothing to do with us, Emma, because we're not them. They're kids."

"Exactly, Will. I'm an adult. Which makes it worse." She looked down at the bed sheets. "If you knew half of the things I did when you were with Terri, half of the certifiably crazy excuses I found to run into you, or talk to you, or even just look at you Will, you would. . ." she shivered at the thought.

"I would what," he whispered as he lifted her chin up to follow her eyes.

"You would think I was pathetic."

He leaned forward to kiss the bridge of her nose. "Try me."

"What?" her eyebrows shot up. She had half expected him to throw her breathless down on the bed and kiss her self-deprecating soul senseless. At least that was what usually happened when she aired her typical self-esteem issues.

Instead, he scooted back against the head of the bed and pulled her into him. "Go ahead. Tell me something you did. Emma I can't ease your fears about this if we can't be honest with each other."

"Uh. Well, I would wait for you. In the morning. At school. Outside the stairs." She bit her lip as her fingers played nervously with a button on Will's shirt.

"And?"

"And I would pretend to run into you. _Accidentally_," she choked out and buried her head into his neck to avoid his eyes."

"And?"

"And what? That's what I would do. Wait," she said tentatively. "You. . .knew?"

He laughed. "Emma Pillsbury, you are many things. In fact, you are so many things that I stopped counting a long time ago. But subtle," he brushed her bangs back and winked as she looked up, "is not one of them. Why else do you think I kept walking that way, even on mornings I had cafeteria duty on the other side of the school?"

A smile inched its way up her cheeks as the realization dawned on her. "I _like _this game," she announced as he laughed yet again. He gently pushed her down onto the pillow and straddled her frame.

"Wait. Wait. Hold on," she squeaked as she braced her arms on his shoulders and stilled him from landing on her.

"I'm sorry. I thought this was the part where we had mind-blowing make-up sex," he pouted teasingly.

"Yes, but it's your turn."

"My turn?"

"You know. To tell me something you did." He rolled off of her and sat up. "When we weren't together. Name your crazy?" she grinned and crossed her legs beside him.

"Oh, come on. I don't want to relive any part of my life that doesn't include you. In my bed."

"Will Schuester, I do not believe my ears," she gave his sleeve a little tug. "Are you chickening out on me? Come on, let's be pathetic together."

"Okay," He took a deep breath and jerked his thumb in the direction of the closet. "my ties."

"I'm sorry. What?"

"I would keep all of my ties in the trunk of my car."

"Will that's not embarrassing, that's just disgusting," she giggled as she patted the top of his hand.

"No. Back when you were with Carl. I would wait in the parking lot until I saw you walk into the building. And I was pop open the trunk and put on whatever tie,"

"Matched what I was wearing," she finished his sentence for him as the realization dawned on her. He smiled guiltily at her as her thumbs stroked the back of his hands.

"Will. That is so sweet. . ."she paused before scrunching her face in sympathy at him, "but I'm gonna need something else."

"What?"

"Well, technically that doesn't count, because deep down you knew that I was in love with you."

"So I just bared my soul to you. And you're ready for me to take another swing."

"Yes."

He laughed. "Okay. Well, I was hoping to show this to you after you had a ring on your left hand," he groaned as he rolled off of the bed and disappeared into the closet.

"Will? What are you doing?" she croaked. Just the slightest glimpse at Will's thoughts for their future was enough to knock the wind out of her.

"Just a sec, Em."


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm a little confused," she said as Will set the faded brown Hush Puppies box on the bed in front of her. She tried not to let her disappointment seep across her face. The man of her dreams had just hinted at asking her to marry him, and now she was staring at a crumbling shoebox that was probably shedding god knows what kind of bacteria onto their duvet.

Will sat down across from her on the bed and drummed his fingers on top of the box as he look up at her sheepishly. "Um, Em? I'm gonna need you to raise your right hand. And repeat after me."

"Very funny. Why is there a huge dent in the top?"

"Because Terri found it when she was moving out," he sighed, "and threw it at my head."

_Now_ she was curious. Her eyes widened as she reached for the lid, but his hand caught hers and gently lifted it into the air. "I'm serious, Em." he whispered, and his earnest look made her gulp a little.

"I, Emma Pillsbury, do solemnly swear."

"I, Emma Pillsbury, do solemnly swear," she whispered back.

"On this day in the great state of Ohio, as God as my witness," his stoic face had transformed into a teasing grin right now, "that upon the disclosure of the contents in this box, I will not laugh at the exceedingly brilliant, nauseatingly talented, painfully gorgeous man sitting in front of me."

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Will. I am not repeating that."

He laughed. "Okay, well just go easy on me. Okay?"

She nodded as she leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. He hadn't seemed this nervous since they had begun dating again, and she heard his breath catch as she lifted the lid.

She stared inside the box for a few seconds, and then proceeded to dip her hand in to fish out a few of the tiny identical items. "You wanted to show me a box full of half-empty, half-ounce, hand sanitizer bottles?" Her question was more directed at herself than Will.

"Well, there's more than just that in there," he defended himself. "But. . .yes."

She blinked a few times and waited. "Help me out here, Will."

He picked one out of the box and twirled it around his fingers. "You used to leave these _everywhere_. I remember the first day I found one. Figgins had called me out of class to hound me for that horrifying performance the kids' gave at the pep assembly." Emma nodded in recognition as she glanced back from the box to Will. "I was already on edge that morning because Terri kept texting me every five minutes about the paperwork for the house we were going to buy. And to top it all off, my students were acting like little monsters because I was giving them a test on a Friday. I half-expected them to be literally swinging from the ceiling when I came back to the room."

"But they weren't," Emma added for him.

"Nope. The room was dead silent, there was a neatly stacked pile of completed tests on the front table. And miraculously, everyone was focused on their homework. And I thought to myself, what angel or exorcist has been in my room? And then I saw this," he fingered the bottle in his palm.

"I wasn't looking for them at first. I'd be sitting on the bleachers in the gym, or moving through the cafeteria line, or talking to someone in the mailroom. And it would always plaster this cheesy grin on my face, because it. . . Em, it just made me feel better to know you that you had been there. That you were trying to clean up all the messes in the world," he swallowed, "hell, all the messes in _my_ life, one squirt at a time."

"Will." She didn't know how to finish her sentence. _Any_ sentence. Her heart was pounding.

"I'd slip it into my pocket without thinking, and take it out when I got home. And thirty-seven bottles later," he snapped out of his nostalgia and laughed to himself, "I think we've got enough evidence here for a restraining order."

Her lips were on his before he could look up to see the evening's most recent edition of tears that were escaping down her cheeks. She braced her hands around his neck as the force of her assault sent them both tumbling backwards towards the foot of the bed.

She heard no complaints as her lips worked her way down his neck, but when she reached down to his belt loop, he covered her hand. "Hold on, Em. We're not done yet."

"Mmmm," she half-groaned, half-protested as he dug his arm underneath her back and flipped her over, so he was pressing down on top of her. He lifted himself off of her and stood next to the bed. "Come on, don't you want to dig to a little further into my crazy box?"

"There's more?" she asked the ceiling, as she panted and waited for her heart to slow down.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him sift through the box and pull out a yellow post-it note. He grinned as he read over the contents of the note and leaned over the bed as he stuck it to her forehead.

-  
This story keeps going! One more section to go.


	4. Chapter 4

"Will." She swallowed and looked up at him from the post-it. "This is just too. . .much."

"You have no idea what it is, do you."

"Not a clue."

He laughed as he plopped down on the bed next to her and pulled her legs across his lap. Scrunching her forehead and attempting to focus, she glanced down at Will's scribble again.

_10/12_

_trucker dumps body at reststop_

_Dayton cat sanctuary under invest._

_axe attack road rage_

_baby red pandas Cinn. zoo_

_farmer confronted by alligator_

"Did I ever tell you that Terri would never let me watch what I wanted on TV? I have seen more episodes of Real Housewives and The Hills than I would ever care to admit."

Her eyebrows arched in disapproval at the mention of his ex-wife. "Um, can we please fast forward to the part where you're madly in love with me?"

"Hold on, hold on. You started this you know," he teased, his fingers skimming around her kneecap. "You're the one who thought my post-I-Love-You accessorizing wasn't pathetic enough."

She sighed and stuck the post-it to his shirt pocket. "Sorry. Keep going."

"Okay, well, she would always rail at me when I grabbed for the remote at 9:58. 'Why do you want to watch the news, Will? Why do you want to see freak circus attacks and meth labs exploding, Will. Why do you care about Sue Sylvester's tirades on dolphin rescuers, Will?'" he quoted, mimicking Terri's whiny pitch.

Her pulse quickened as her mind slowly pieced together Will's writing with his story. She leaned back on her elbows and stammered, "Waa. . .why did you?"

"Why do you think, silly?" he asked, wiggling one of her big toes. "Because I knew there was this girl on the other side of town literally perched on the edge of her sofa. Scrubbing fruit. Staring adorably wide-eyed at the latest scandal." He shrugged and laughed uncomfortably. "Kind of like the way you're staring at me right now."

"But the post-it?"

"Well, I couldn't get the news at home, so I'd look it up online at school, and scribble down the headlines most mornings." Clearly embarrassed by this latest revelation, his head dropped out of her bewildered gaze. "You know. In case you brought it up at lunch. Or something."

Misinterpreting her silence, he began to backpedal. "Eh. It's stupid. I shouldn't have brought it up." He peeled the post-it off of his shirt and crumpled it in his fist."

"It's _not_ stupid, Will," she whispered as she scooted forward into his lap. "It's not. _You_ noticed how everyone would roll their eyes at that girl if she started talking about those insane stories." He nodded as her hand weaved its way through the back of his hair. "_You_ noticed how she stopped talking about them unless someone cared to ask." Leaning her head onto his shoulder she chuckled, "But did you also notice that this girl would have also been more than thrilled to talk to you about the paint chipping on the side of the building, or how quickly the grass was growing."

He laughed. "Yeah, I know. But god, Em, the way your face would light up, when you rambled about killer bees and Chinese toy recalls. You were so adorable when you would wave your hands in a certain pattern or scrunch your nose a funny direction. And that made every second I spent surfing the mindless abyss that is the Western Ohio news website more than worth it."

"Really?" she asked, scrunching her nose in exaggeration.

"Haha. Yes." He leaned forward to kiss it. "Some days I would literally have to sit on my hands so I wouldn't grab you and throw you down on top of your tupperware and have my way with you." He began to lean backwards, taking her with him. "Which I plan on doing right about—"

"Wait. You said there was more?" she asked as she squirmed out of his arms.

"Yes," he laughed, dragging his hand over his forehead. "But I was hoping we could take a short intermission."

"But this keeps getting better and better!" she smiled, bouncing up and down on her knees and digging through the shoebox. "What's this?"

Will took the small, rectangular manila envelope from her hands and sat it down on the duvet. "Now _this_, is very special. And luckily for my pride, a little less Fatal Attraction than my other surprises this evening."

"Will. I love _everything_ in your crazy box. Maybe not the box itself," she teased, lifting it and brushing the invisible germs out from underneath, "but everything you have shown me."

He smiled as he pinched the metal clasp up on the envelope. When the thin stack of papers slid onto the bed, as she grabbed for them immediately. "Aww, now I _know_ what these are. These are all your glee club performance programs."

"Not just any programs, Em."

"They're the ones that _I _left for you," she said proudly as she flipped through them.

"Do you remember the night we had our first invitational?"

"You mean the night when she who shall not be named almost mowed me down in the parking lot?" she teased. In reality, they were long past the days when hearing the name April Rhodes made her see red.

"No, I mean the night before the day I fell in love with you," he said matter-of-factly, before leaning in to kiss her softly.

She blinked at the revelation, closing and opening her mouth a few times before managing to croak, "Huh?"

"When the thirteen of us walked into school the next morning," he began, referring to himself and the glee kids, "we were literally on top of the world."

"They _were_ amazing," she agreed, her mind flashed back to the performance.

"I'll admit, my pride convinced me to hang around the faculty workroom a little longer than usual that morning," he frowned. "I kept waiting for someone to congratulate me or the kids. Or say something, _anything_, about the performance."

"Will," she breathed, placed a hand on his shoulder as she scooted next to him.

"But by fifth period I had four Glee kids in the bathroom scrubbing slushy out of their hair, two in the principal's office for shoving a football player who kept shouting 'homo explosion' at them in the parking lot," he sighed loudly before continuing, "and one particularly dramatic diva who couldn't stop wailing about the obvious lack of interest in her return to stardom."

"Why didn't you ever tell me about this?"

"Because you had already fixed it. I just didn't realize it until I found a stack of programs sitting on the piano that afternoon before rehearsal." She sighed softly as he began to lightly scrape his fingers up and down her back. "By the way, I never asked you how you managed to swipe thirteen programs that night."

"I can be very persuasive when I need to be."

"Yes, I know," he grinned. "Anyway, the mood in the choir room that afternoon was nothing short of toxic. Sue Sylvester would have been doing cartwheels down the hallway if she had known. But when I told them that they had all received very important mail from the president of their fan club,"

"There's no term limit is there? Because I plan on keeping that position indefinitely."

He laughed. "Good. Because when they read the notes you had written them, it was like you had taken a giant eraser to their whole day. I will _never_ forget the looks on their faces."

"And that's when you fell in love with me." she whispered to herself.

"Nope." He curled his arm around her waist. "You know I didn't read what you wrote on my program at rehearsal that afternoon."

"Why not?" She shuffled through the stack of programs until she found the one from the invitational.

"Because I had this sneaking suspicion that I need to be sitting down, and without an audience when I read it."

She laughed. "You waited until you got _all_ the way home?"

"No, I waited until I got home, took a shower, ate dinner, graded papers, argued with Terri about why she didn't bother to show up at the invitational after she had promised me, and went to bed."

"Um, why?"

"Because I was terrified, Em. I was scared out of my mind that the only person, _the only person_, who cared enough to cheer me on was also the kindest, most beautiful woman in the entire world."

"Will, I'm trying to breathe here. You're not helping," she sighed contentedly as she leaned back onto a pillow.

"Well it's true!" he chuckled as he reclined himself next to her.

"It's just that," she held the paper above her eyes to reread it. "I didn't really write anything romantic. Or even that sentimental. Seriously, Will, this is not my best work."

"Oh, and I suppose memorizing the details of a cat sanctuary investigation is mine?" he laughed, referring to the post-it he had already dropped back into the box. He pulled her body against him. "Em, you confirmed to me every day that what I was doing. . .the hours of dance steps. The stacks of sheet music. The battles with Sue and accusations of destroying Rachel's career," she giggled at the last part, "that it wasn't . . .pathetic. That it means something."

"Of course it does," she replied, resting her head against his chest. Her heart ached a little to think of the torment Terri's complaints and Sue's barrage of insults had reeked on Will's self-esteem.

"Do you know, before I left Terri, before I found out about the . . . _baby_," he winced a little at the word, "When I couldn't even fall asleep, I would sneak into the bathroom. And I'd sit on the edge of the bathtub and read the notes you had left me."

Her eyes widened. "You did not." She blinked away a tear. Was it _possible _that she hadn't already wrung every ounce of liquid out of her head that night?

"I did," he whispered as he squeezed his arms tighter around her small frame, kissing the top of her head. "You know, sometimes I'd even sneak a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in there, too."

"Oh Will," she sniffed. "You ate in the _bathroom_?"

He laughed as he stroked her hair. "Yes, I know. Pretty pathetic. Which reminds me Em, have I mentioned that I was an asshole for railing on Rachel Berry earlier? Because I'm pretty sure tonight's surprises have given her a run for her money."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," she smiled.

Tugging on her hip, he sat up. "Come on. I think there is one more thing I need you to see."


	5. Chapter 5

Perched on the edge of the sofa, Emma twisted her hands in her lap as Will cleared away the dishes from the dining room table. He had insisted that they eat something before he divulged the last item in the shoe box.

_A ring. It had to be a ring, right? But earlier, hadn't he had said he wanted to show her the box only after they were engaged? Maybe he had said that to throw her off. _

She had barely had the composure to accomplish little more than nudging her food counter clockwise around her plate in neat little piles.

_A house. That was it. He had bought a house. How dare he buy a house without consulting her._

She had scowled as her eyes darted back and forth from the box sitting on the coffee table to his motions, as though his methodical chewing and far-off stare somehow held the clue to its contents.

_Lab results. Oh God. Will was dying. _

When he noticed her eyes widen, he grinned and began to teasingly stab each pea, one at a time with a single fork prong, before popping it into his mouth.

_Money. A wealthy relative had died. But he had hidden it from her to make sure that she didn't love him for wrong reasons. The blue clunker. The off-brand peanut butter. The one-ply toilet paper. It all made sense now. _

"Earth to Emma. Are you-?"

"Will," she dropped her fork onto the plate. "I love you. But unless your aim is to melt me into a giant puddle of anxiety on the carpet, then whatever you're doing isn't working."

"All right, all right," he had said, reaching across the table to cover his hand with hers. "Let me clear these away, and you go sit down."

By the time he had returned to the living room, she would not have been surprised if he could actually hear her heart pounding. He sat down next to her and rested a palm on her cheek.

"You know that I love you, Em."

She gulped and nodded. _It was definitely a ring. A ring. Or cancer. Maybe both. _

"And I have always appreciated how we are 100% honest with each other. Good and bad. But I have debated for a while now when was the right time to show this to you, and-"

His confession was interrupted by the sudden gurgling of her stomach, at which they both glanced downward.

"You should have eaten more."

"I ate plenty. Those are the kamikaze butterflies exploding off the walls of my stomach."

He laughed nervously. "I'm sorry. I'll speed this up."

"No." she looped her fingers through his and kissed them. "_I'm_ sorry. This clearly is very important to you, Will, and from what I can gather it isn't easy. Take as much time as you need."

His shoulders relaxed at he let out a deep sigh. "Okay. Well you know, Em, the week I found out that Terri was faking the pregnancy, was without a doubt, the worst week of my entire life. I was certain that glee club was officially over, the remaining thread holding my marriage together snapped, and to top it all off, I was more than certain that I had lost you to Ken. When I think about what a _coward_ I was, not to tell you how I felt, not do everything in my power to keep that wedding from happening. . ."

She shook her head as she squeezed his hand. "Will._ Please stop_. You had just lost your baby. How you managed to get out of bed at all is proof to me of how brave you were."

He smiled weakly. "When we first started dating, Em, I felt like the luckiest man in the world. So lucky that I refused to let myself feel sad. So lucky that I forced myself to stop thinking . . .about the baby."

Now she _was _crying. She wrapped her arms around his waist as he pulled her to him.

"No, no, sweetheart," he begged as his thumb smudged a tear off her cheek. "That was _not _your fault. I should have talked to you about it, but I chose not too. That mistake was mine, and mine alone. And when you told me that I needed to figure out what my own needs were, well, that's what I tried to do."

"What did you do?" she breathed softly.

"I tried everything I could think of. I saw a counselor. There was a tower of self-help books on my night stand. I even went to a support group for parents grieving a miscarriage. I tried to write letters to my daughter. Em," he whispered, "I even tried to give her a name. But it all felt wrong. I kept asking myself, how do you grieve something that wasn't even alive?" He choked back a sob. "How do you let go of something you never could have held in the first place?"

Her first instinct was to bolt out of the apartment, race across town, and throttle the very life out of Terri Del Monaco. But she just wrapped herself tighter around him.

"I had sunk to a place that I thought I could never return from. And one night I got so desperate, that I called the only person I could think of who might be able to understand."

She thought for a minute before looking up at him. "Finn? But he's just a boy, Will."

"Oh believe me, I felt like a selfish bastard for unleashing my emotional monsters on a kid, Emma, but that's how truly desperate I was. But you know what he told me?" he slowly traced a finger down the length of her arm.

She sniffed. "What?"

"He told me that sometimes the world has to clear out our own meager expectations to pave a way for things we could hardly imagine on our own."

Arching her eyebrows, she cleared her throat. "Ugh, _Finn _said that?"

He smiled. "I believe his actual words were, 'Mr. Schue, sometimes life bulldozes the shit out of what we want, cause there's better shit waiting for us."

"Wow. Um. Profound." she teased.

"You joke, Em, but he said exactly what I needed to hear." He leaned her gently back against the couch. "And if I hadn't listened," he said as he lifted the shoebox off of the coffee table, balancing it on his knees, "the _very _next day I would have walked right past the most incredible dream I could ever hope for."

She squeezed her eyes shut as his fingers dove into the box, half expecting to see him down on one knee in front of her when she finally forced one eyelid open. Instead, he had sat the box down opposite of him on the couch and then turned to place a small, faded photograph on her lap. Her breath slowed as she stared wide-eyed at the picture for a few seconds, before glancing back at Will. Her befuddled stare spoke the words she couldn't find on her own.

"You're wondering where I got this," he translated before standing up. "Yeah, I, sort of. Stole it."

"You stole it." She repeated before turning her gaze back down to the toddler grinning back at her.

"Well, you remember during the week of yearbook pictures. They put the bulletin board in the front lobby of all the faculty's baby photos, and I was so distraught over what happened with Terri that the _last_ thing I wanted," by now he was nervously pacing across the living room, raking his hands through his hair, "was to go looking through my own photos or stare at a bunch of freaking babies every day when I walked in the building."

By now she was on autopilot. "You stole it."

"Yes. Well the morning after I talked to Finn, I passed one of the yearbook kids taking them down from the wall. And Em," he stopped and turned towards her. "No sooner did I glance up than I locked eyes with the most precious thing. I had ever seen. Hundreds of freckles. Curly red hair. And a smile so adorable it literally kick-started my heart again."

She opened her mouth as she watched him move back towards her, but nothing came out. Every ounce of energy in her body was being directed towards restraining the heart that threatened to cartwheel right out of her chest.

"In that moment, Emma," he whispered as he cautiously sat down beside her again, "I realized why I could never wrap my mind around the baby that I lost. I could never imagine her, or dream about her, because she was never meant to be mine. But then I found her," he choked out as he rested his thumb on the photo, "And I saw something, for the first time. Something that _could _be real. Something that could be. . .ours."

"Will," she sighed, leaning her head onto his shoulder. "Why would you be afraid to show me this?"

"Because I didn't want to freak you out," he laughed nervously, "because your boyfriend, well, not _even _boyfriend at the time, had stolen your baby picture and was spending his planning period daydreaming about your non-existent child."

"You don't think that I think about it, too?" she breathed into his ear.

"You do?" he croaked.

"Of course. But we're not even married. I didn't want to freak you out either."

He laughed, before pulling her face closer to him. Punctuating his words with kisses across her face, he said, "Okay. New. Rule. We talk about things that make us deliriously happy even upon threat of scaring each other."

Grinning, she patted him playfully on the head. And just when he leaned in to kiss her again, she stood up from the couch and wandered out of the room.

"Um. Em? We were kind of having a moment here?"

"Just a sec, Will."


	6. Chapter 6

Emma groaned as she flung the weight of her shoulder bag into the backseat of her car. It wasn't her imagination Thursday _was _the longest day of the week. The day's horrors had begun one with particularly troubling incident involving Noah Puckerman and a fire extinguisher. By the end of sixth period her mary janes had teetered perilously on the steps of the school's structurally questionable step-ladder, while she gently coaxed the school's valedictorian, recently rejected from Yale, off of the roof of the structurally questionable janitorial shed. And her afternoon was simply bursting at the seams with the kind of career satisfaction that came from teaching SAT prep to a certain blonde Cheerio who had yet to master the art of bubbling in a circle.

There had been barely enough time to rest her feet much less even steal a glance at Will, who had a meeting with a parent during lunch and extended rehearsal after school. Stupid, stupid, Thursday.

As she pulled out of the faculty parking lot and passed by the practice field, Emma couldn't help but grin a little as she caught a glimpse of her last appointment of the day. Perched on the top row of bleachers with her pink backpack, sat Rachel, her eyes darting back and forth from a certain football player to the chemistry book in which she so obviously feigned interest.

Seconds before the final bell of the day had rung, Emma had had every intention of sprinting down to Will's classroom to steal a quick something, anything, before their afternoon commitments stole them away from each other. After their Thursday night confessions during the prior week, they had both begun to slack off on the after school planning and paperwork that had interfered with their eagerness to pursue their own . . extra-curricular activities_. _

But of course, right on cue, Emma's afternoon urges were trumped by the rapid, precise, _incessant_ tapping of her most reliable customer on the glass door to her office. Who of course didn't need an invitation before she had landed onto the edge of the first available chair. This was the first time she had seen Rachel since last week's diva crisis. Though they didn't discuss it, she had assumed it was because Will was keeping his end of the bargain.

"Miss Pillsbury," she said, leaning forward. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that you, as a professional, are held under the 2010 ethical guidelines mapped out by the American School Counselor Association, more specifically the confidentiality clause listed under Section A, guideline number two?"

If anyone else in the entire world spoken the same sentence, anyone other than the bundle of nervous determination perched in front of her, she would have answered the question.

"So, what can I do for you today, Rachel?" she asked nonchalantly, tucking away her test prep books into her bag.

"What did you tell Mr. Schuester about myself," Rachel asked, before glancing behind them towards the crowded hallway and whispering, "and Finn?"

Emma looked up from her bag. Any frustration she had felt concerning Rachel's ill-timed arrival melted as she recalled the emotions of her own little meltdown from the previous week.

"Rachel, what you tell me is always just between us. I would never jeopardize that trust for anyone." She cleared her throat. "Not even Mr. Schuester. Besides, you know that he sees both of you much more than I do, so he probably picked up-"

"Well, can you please relay a message to him from me?" By now she had gotten up from her seat and made her way toward the side window. The crazy-eyed expression on her face told Emma that she was now watching the lead actor in her own daily drama series make his way towards the choir room.

"Rachel, you're going to see him in ten minutes at rehearsal," Emma guessed, aligning her stapler with the tape dispenser, silently invoking the guidance counselor gods that ten minutes did not turn into ten hours in her office. "I won't see him until, tomorrow," she lied.

"Yes, but. . ." Rachel turned to face her, "it's _embarrassing_. And I can't tell him myself."

_Now_ she was interested. Rachel Berry did not want to be direct with someone? Emma hadn't noticed any meteors hurtling toward earth in last night's weather report. There were no recent animal migrations or geological events that had indicated an oncoming apocalypse.

"Okay. What would you like me to tell him?"

"Would you tell him that I do not need any assistance in the art of romance?"

"Wait. What?" Emma sputtered. That was the absolute last thing she had imagined to hear.

"Miss Pillsbury, I appreciate his dedication to the inevitable, legendary pairing that Finn and myself are destined to become. But his incessant desire to help my cause is frankly embarrassing and unprofessional for an educator."

"I'm sorry. Help your cause?"

"Yesterday, he wrote a list of all the football players that Finn admires on the back of my Spanish homework. He keeps sending us both to the supply closet to dig for sheet music he clearly has no intention of ever using, or makes us conjugate verbs like to love or to marry on the board in front of the class. And the endless duets he assigns to us in rehearsal are hopelessly saccharine and hardly deserving of my vocal range."

Emma's eyes-widened exponentially at the end of each revelation, and she choked back the laugh that had collected at the back of her throat. Rachel picked up her backpack off of the floor and swung open the door.

"Miss Pillsbury, I know that his intentions are noble," she began, leaning against the frame. Emma nodded as she bit back a grin, "But Mr. Schuester is drawing attention to himself, and to Finn and myself, that is less than stellar for our reputations. Frankly," she whispered, "it's a little pathetic."

Emma laughed as she turned into their neighborhood, replaying what had truly been the most rewarding moment of her day. Just the thought of Will as matchmaker, trying to show his kids a path to just a small portion of the happiness to which his and Emma's own craziness had led, made her ache for his 7:28 arrival even more. She sighed and leaned back against the head rest, shifting her hands around the wheel, turning her car onto their street. It was only 4:30, so she would have almost three hours to plan a homecoming he certainly would not forget.

She smiled as she remembered the events of last Thursday night again in her head. After Will's baby confession, she had left him gaping at the space where she had cuddled next to him on the couch.

"Em? Seriously, do I need to come in there to throw you down, or are we going to resume activities in here?"

"Last delay, I promise," she had shouted as she made her way back down the hall and into the living room." Before plopping down on the couch again, she had dropped an empty pink J Crew shoe box on the coffee table next to his own treasure.

"Call your mother," she had ordered, handing him the phone, "and tell her to get out the photo albums. I'm starting my own crazy box, and I know _exactly_ what to put in first."

As her car reached the beginning of their block, Emma blushed as she recalled the rest of the evenings event. Last Thursday was going to be a tough night to top, but she had every intention of going above and beyond it the second Will slipped his key into the apartment door that night. This time, there were no words, no tears, no revelations of crazy stalker memorabilia to delay them.

Squinting as she spotted a tall figure standing at the end of the block, Emma's breath caught in her throat. At first, she was certain her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she forced herself to mentally cross off hitchhiker, dog walker, and lost Alzheimer's patient as her eyes focused on the man standing next to the stop sign. She grinned as she slowed her car to a stop, watching him as he walked around to the driver's side and tapped lightly on the window.

Rolling her eyes and the window simultaneously, she questioned, "What are you doing? I thought you had rehearsal today?"

He leaned inside the window pulling her to him in an awkward hug before releasing her and showering her face with hasty kisses.

"Will," she laughed. "What has gotten into you?"

"I wanted you to see the apartment first," he sputtered nervously, talking to the steering wheel more than her. "Romantic dinner, candlelight, music, flowers, crazy shoebox like gifts. But I couldn't stand it anymore. I kept looking for you out the window and thought I heard you coming up the steps like five different times and. . .I mean honestly, Em, how long does it take for a person to get in her car and drive home?"

She knew _exactly _how long it took. But before she could answer, he knelt down in the street and reached into his pocket.

_The End. Thanks to everyone for following along on my little, pathetic adventure! I do take requests. :)_


	7. Chapter 7

Epilogue

Glancing up from the mountain of paperwork spread across the kitchen table, Emma's sleepy eyes wandered towards the clock on the microwave. 7:23. College application season was always her busiest time of the year, and she had yet to make even a dent in the massive amount of recommendations she had been asked to write. Somehow her afternoon had slipped by without even a thought of dinner. She hoped that Will had anticipated the stress of the evening and would bring something home with him after rehearsal. Or be willing to settle for peanut butter and jelly. Stretching lazily and rising from the table to make her way to the refrigerator, she winced as her bare foot hit an intruding object.

"Shit!" she yelped before turning around quickly to make sure she had no audience. She reached down to pick up the tiny plastic bottle.

Her eyebrows rose in speculation until she caught a glimpse of another bottle, sitting upright in the entrance to the dining room. Moving to the doorway, she giggled as her eyes fell on a row of perfectly aligned half-ounce, half-empty hand-sanitizer bottles winding their way haphazardly around the dining room table, leading into the living room. Curiously, she followed the trail around the television, behind the couch, and down the hallway, stopping and grinning when she saw the domino-precise line disappear into their bedroom.

"Hmm, I see you've been digging around the closet again," she teased as she leaned against the doorway. Her heart fluttered a little at the sight before her.

"Mommy, why does Daddy have a picture of me in a shoebox?"

"Actually, that's a picture of me," she explained as the culprit's hazel eyes bounced skeptically back and forth from the photograph to her mother.

"Really?" she gaped, falling backwards onto the duvet and holding the photograph above her tiny head.

"Yup," Emma grinned as she picked up the box and sat down on to the bed next to her.

"But you look just like me!"

"Almost," she agreed, running her fingers through the ringlets that fell around her daughter's face. "Your daddy likes to keep special things in this box. We'll have to find something of yours for him to put in there."

"Why is there a million of your samitzer bottles?" she asked, sitting up to point at the end of the plastic trail she had built.

Emma laughed. How could you explain _that_ to a four-year-old?

"Well, Daddy used to be too scared to kiss me, so he had to collect these instead."

Scrunching her nose and sympathetically patting her mother's hand, she sighed. "He is _so _silly."

"That's why _you _are so silly," Emma teased, pinching her daughter's nose.

"Do you want me to clean them up?" she asked somberly, climbing into her arms.

"After dinner. I think Daddy will laugh when he sees them."

Her eyes squinted intensely at the wall clock. "Is it 7:28 yet?" she squealed.

"Almost."

"We should wait for him at the stop sign!" she shouted, bouncing out of Emma's grasp, and tugging persistently at her arm.

Emma laughed. "I think that is a fantastic idea."


End file.
